Road trip! Cross-country startup lessons
Q: "Hey Dad, how about you fly out to Boston and drive home from college with me?" -- Mara
A: When my daughter asked me to hop in her car and drive 3,000 miles, I loved the idea. I expected some yucks, and a tired back, and a lot of music I had never heard before, but what I didn't expect was that I would end up seeing the best of what small business has to offer in this country.
Let's call it the Great American Small Business Road Trip.
In Worcester, Mass., I met a mechanic that truly gets that when it comes to customer service, a small business has a distinct advantage.
Before I agreed to my daughter's plan, I went on Yelp and looked for a mechanic who could check her old car out before we set sail. I found one place that had 30 (!) five star reviews. When I called the place (Putnam Lane Auto), the proprietor Dan was more than happy to help us.
He checked out the car, fixed a few things, was very reasonably priced, communicated with me constantly, and gave me an honest assessment of the car. In the end, I decided it would be better to rent a car for the trip, mostly because I thought that driving 3,000 miles in a car that predates the Clinton Administration was not our best idea ever.
When I told Dan this, he offered to let me store my daughter's car in his secure lot – for free – for the summer. Wow. An honest mechanic who communicated well, did great work, deserved every five-star review he has, and saved me money. Small business at its best. How could that be beat?
It couldn't, but it could be matched, in both Detroit and Wall, S.D.
I had never been to Detroit before, and the empty lots and gutted buildings were eye opening. But, that said, a far more interesting thing to see was the renaissance happening in the city because of entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurs are nothing if not opportunistic, and in Detroit, they have seen an opportunity. With low rents and high unemployment, Detroit offers startups a chance to launch at much less the cost than it would in other cities. Combine that with government incentives, new incubators, committed civic leaders, and venture capital, and what you get today in Detroit is a new entrepreneur class, committed to helping themselves, and in the process, the city.
In fact, it is the tech startup scene in Detroit that is really taking off. Google created a tech hub there to help new entrepreneurs, Twitter recently opened an office downtown, and since 2008, 33 VC firms have set up shop in Michigan.
Entrepreneurship to the rescue!
As we drive west, the topography changes; distances between cities spread out, trees are fewer. Soon we are in South Dakota, where we begin to see the first of many billboards in the middle of nowhere for Wall Drug:
■ "Free Ice Water – Wall Drug"
■ "Black Hills Gold – Wall Drug"
■ "YOLO – You Only Live Once – Wall Drug"
■ "201 Miles – Wall Drug"
If you have ever driven Interstate 90, you know what I am talking about. Wall Drug billboards practically compel you to stop in the tiny town and check it out.
And that was the idea, (almost) right from the start.
It was at the height of the Great Depression when new pharmacist Ted Hulstead and his wife Dorothy decided to buy the tiny drugstore in tiny Wall, South Dakota (pop. 326.) As Hulstead says in his history of Wall Drug,
Dorothy and I were excited about Wall, but when we got back home and told our families about the plan, we found them skeptical. "That town is in the middle of nowhere," a cousin said, "and furthermore, everybody there is flat broke busted."
But Ted and Dorothy decided to take a leap of faith. They bought the store and gave then venture five years. But by 1936, nothing much had happened and the five years were almost up. "What would we do then?" Ted asked himself.
It was then that Dorothy had her big idea. She noted to Ted that there were a lot of people driving to the new national park, Mount Rushmore.
"Well now, what is it that those travelers really want after driving across that hot prairie? They're thirsty. They want water. Ice cold water! Now we've got plenty of ice and water. Why don't we put up signs on the highway telling people to come here for free ice water?"
"The next weekend, I went out to the highway and put up our signs for free ice water. By the time I got back to the store, people had already begun showing up. Dorothy was running all around to keep up. I pitched in alongside her. We ran through our supply of cracked ice. "Hey this free ice water is a great idea," said a salesman, sidling up onto a stool. "How about selling me an ice cream cone?"
And the rest, as they say, is history. Today, Wall Drug covers 76,000 square feet and spends upwards of $400,000 a year on billboard advertising.
The lessons?
■ Give folks what they want
■ People love free things, and
■ Market the heck out of your business
Oh, and make doubly sure that the car you rent has comfortable seats.
Steve Strauss, @Steve Strauss on Twitter, is a lawyer specializing in small business and entrepreneurship and has been writing for USATODAY.com for 20 years. E-mail: sstrauss@mrallbiz.com. Website: TheSelfEmployed.